POLLOCK’S NEWS UPDATE: Harold Meij discusses NJPW’s future

Harold Meij chats New Japan's plans for 2020, AEW & U.S. expansion, WWE Starrcade tonight, ACH appears for AAW, new Fiend custom title & more.

POST IT NOTES

**We have the latest edition of Thunderstruck on the site with WH Park joined by Dylan Fox of the Eastern Lariat podcast. On this week’s show, they chat about the April 1992 match between Jushin Thunder Liger and El Samurai. The show is also available on POST Wrestling’s YouTube channel.

**Friday’s edition of Rewind-A-SmackDown is available for all members of the POST Wrestling Café. In addition to reviewing Friday’s episode, we also chat about Conor McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone, announcements for AEW Dynamite this week, WWE’s weekend schedule, Lance Storm closing down his school, and taking your feedback.

**Wai Ting and I will be back Monday night with Rewind-A-Raw following Raw from Nashville.

**Andrew Thompson will have an interview with Joey Janela this Tuesday on the site.

WRESTLING NEWS

**WWE held its card from Arena Ciudad in Mexico City on Saturday night featuring Cain Velasquez’s second match with the company. He was initially advertised for a tag match with Rey Mysterio, then was listed only for an appearance, and then back on the show where he teamed with Humberto Carrillo to defeat Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows. Velasquez did a lot of media ahead of the show this week. In the main event, The Fiend defeated Rey Mysterio after walking out of the steel cage to retain the Universal title. Afterward, Shinsuke Nakamura and Sami Zayn came out and Mysterio fought them off so that Mysterio could go off on a high note in front of the crowd.

**Tonight, is the Starrcade special from Duluth, Georgia that will feature a one-hour version airing at 7 pm Eastern on the WWE Network. The following are listed for tonight’s airing:
*The Kabuki Warriors vs. Becky Lynch & Charlotte Flair vs. Bayley & Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross for the WWE women’s tag titles
*Rusev vs. Bobby Lashley in a Last Man Standing match
*Ric Flair on The Kevin Owens Show

**There will be a new edition of ’24’ on Trish Stratus airing at 8 pm Eastern on the WWE Network tonight.

**New Japan President Harold Meij spoke to Fox Sports in Australia about the company and several interesting topics were covered.
-Meij said there are a lot of eyes on Japan for the coming year because of the Summer Olympics and the demand for the product, they opted to do two Tokyo Dome shows in January. He added that he doesn’t foresee it being a yearly tradition of running back-to-back nights at the Dome.
-He repeated that New Japan did not cause any problems for Kenny Omega getting into Japan this year. He was complimentary of Omega’s contributions to the company and they wish him all the best.
-On the U.S. expansion in 2020, he emphasized the need for fans to sample the product in person as well as doing shows at a convenient time for that part of the world rather than relying on fans waking up for shows airing live in Japan.
-Meij was definitive that the relationship with Ring of Honor would continue and are ‘here for the long run with partners that we tie-up with’ and that crossover would continue. He said it takes a long time to develop trust with other companies but is open to working with anyone (Impact Wrestling wasn’t brought up, which would be a group that makes strategic sense now that Anthem Sports owns AXS TV and New Japan airs on the network).
-His last comment addressed the departures of Omega, The Young Bucks, and Cody earlier this year and the formation of AEW:

Obviously we would’ve loved to have kept having them here but I can understand that if there’s in their minds a bigger and better opportunity, well then that’s just a natural way for competition to move forward. It’s a natural thing. I do also believe the likes of AEW is good for the industry, because it puts a lot of new money into the industry, and a lot of people might be getting more interested in pro wrestling – people who might not have been interested if AEW hadn’t been established. So it can only be good for the industry.

There is more from Fox Sports’ interview with Harold Meij at this link.

**WWE Shop is selling a limited number of custom handcrafted titles in the image of The Fiend Bray Wyatt. The design was briefly shown during one of the Firefly Fun House segments this past Friday night. The custom titles are listed at $6,499.99 per title. Between Daniel Bryan’s former persona and Sami Zayn’s current one, capitalism is a babyface trait in WWE but this is above-and-beyond to the point I’d be having an intervention with anyone that bought this.

**After all of the events that have gone done, Kelly Klein has revealed that Ring of Honor blocked her on Twitter. Klein is recovering from a concussion she sustained back in October when the promotion was in the U.K. Klein was recently informed that ROH would be pulling out of their negotiations for a new contract once her current one expires, which is believed to be at the end of December. Klein is still the Women of Honor champion and it’s unknown how ROH is going to address the title situation.

**ACH is wrestling for Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment tonight at District Atlanta (269 Armour Drive NE) with bell time at 6:05 pm. He also appeared at the AAW show on Saturday night teaming with the Besties in the World to defeat Sami Callihan, Trey Miguel & Zachary Wentz. He also cut the following promo:

**Monday’s episode of Raw from Nashville, Tennessee will feature a handicap match with the Kabuki Warriors vs. Charlotte Flair and an “apology” from Seth Rollins to the Raw locker room.

**There will be a new episode of NWA Power this Tuesday night and will be the last show from the October 1st tapings at GPB Studios leading into the pay-per-view on December 14th.

**All Elite Wrestling has added a match between Pentagon Jr. and Christopher Daniels for this week’s episode of Dynamite from Champaign, Illinois. They had previously announced the following matches for TNT this week:
*Rey Fenix vs. Trent
*The Young Bucks & Dustin Rhodes vs. Santana, Ortiz & Sammy Guevara
*Kenny Omega vs. Joey Janela

**The audiobook for NITRO: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner’s WCW by Guy Evans is now available for $29.95.

**Konnan is being advertised for this Thursday’s MLW tapings at the Melrose Ballroom, which will feature the Opera Cup tournament.

**Lance Storm’s contract with WWE begins today following his last session at the Storm Wrestling Academy on Friday. He joked that he was unemployed for one day on Saturday. Storm is returning to the company as a producer.

**Rey Fenix and Pentagon Jr. will defend the House of Glory tag titles against Private Party next Saturday at the NYC Arena.

**New Japan as a World Tag League show on Monday morning and will be added to New Japan World later in the day. The promotion is entering the final week of the tournament with the final date next Sunday to crown the winners. Below is Monday’s card and the updated point totals:
*Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi (2) vs. Shingo Takagi & Terrible (10)
*Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls vs. Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens
*KENTA & Yujiro (10) vs. Colt Cabana & Toru Yano (16)
*Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi (10) vs. Hirooki Goto & Karl Fredericks (4)
*Guerrillas of Destiny (16) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare (4)
*Kazuchika Okada & Roppongi 3K vs. Kota Ibushi, Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask
*EVIL & Sanada (18, first place) vs. Lance Archer & Minoru Suzuki (14)
*Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi (16) vs. Juice Robinson & David Finlay (16)

*****
THUNDERSTRUCK: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. El Samurai (April 30, 1992)

WH Park and Dylan Fox of The Eastern Lariat podcast have a fun discussion on the finals of the Top of the Super Junior III tournament from April 30, 1992, between Jushin Liger and El Samurai.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/12/01/thunderstruck-6-jushin-liger-vs-el-samurai-4-30-92-w-dylan-fox/
*****
BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE
Martin & Jamesie are joined by JP Houlihan of GRAPPL Spotlight to discuss all the European representation over Survivor Series Weekend including Pete Dunne’s two matches and WALTER. JP gives his live report from the Rev Pro British J Cup.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/29/bwe-11-29-19-rev-pro-british-j-cup-survivor-series-weekend-mail-bag/
*****
Café Hangout – Nov. 28, 2019

John Pollock and Wai Ting open up the phone lines for an entire hour taking your calls about any current topics in wrestling and MMA. We then review this week’s WWE NXT following up the brand’s dominance at Survivor Series.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/28/unlocked-live-link-for-todays-cafe-hangout-3-pm-et/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 11/27/19: A Little Bit of the Foilies
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite featuring Chris Jericho vs. Scorpio Sky for the AEW title. We also discuss today’s news.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/28/rad-11-27-19-a-little-bit-of-the-foilies/
*****
upNXT 11/27/19: Prince Meet King
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back to chat all about the November 27 edition of NXT featuring a huge main event between Tommaso Ciampa vs Finn Balor.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/28/upnxt-11-28-19-prince-meet-king/
*****
ASK-A-WAI – December 2019
John Pollock and Wai Ting answer their patrons’ questions from the POST Wrestling Forum in the December 2019 edition of Ask-A-Wai.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/31885914
*****
RAR 11/25/19: “Twitter Seth”, Austin-Undertaker Interview
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw following the Survivor Series featuring Seth Rollins’ Town Hall. Plus, we discuss Steve Austin’s interview with The Undertaker on the Broken Skull Sessions.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/26/rar-11-25-19-twitter-seth-undertaker-austin-interview/
*****

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About John Pollock 5484 Articles
Born on a Friday, John Pollock is a reporter, editor & podcaster at POST Wrestling. He runs and owns POST Wrestling alongside Wai Ting.